“I don’t think there’s any question that you would be the
biggest dove, if you will, since World War II,” Republican
Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee said to Bernanke today during
the Fed chairman’s semi-annual testimony to the Senate Banking
Committee. “I think it’s something you’re rather proud of.”

“You called me a dove,” Bernanke replied. “Well maybe in
some respects I am, but on the other hand my inflation record is
the best of any Federal Reserve chairman in the postwar period -
- at least one of the best, about 2 percent average inflation.”

Under Bernanke the Federal Open Market Committee has sought
to spur economic growth and reduce unemployment by holding the
benchmark interest rate at close to zero since December 2008.
Unemployment last month was 7.9 percent. The committee has also
pushed the Fed’s balance sheet to a record $3.1 trillion through
bond purchases aimed partly at averting deflation.

The Fed’s preferred gauge of inflation, the personal
consumption expenditures price index, matched a three-year low
of 1.3 percent in December compared with a year earlier.

The inflation index has averaged 2.1 percent since Bernanke
took office in January 2006, according to Commerce Department
data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s below the 3.8 percent average
level from the January 1960 start of monthly data until Bernanke
became chairman, the data show.

Inflation averaged 2.6 percent under Chairman Alan
Greenspan, who led the central bank from 1987 to 2006. His
predecessor Paul Volcker’s signature accomplishment was taming
inflation rates that averaged 5.6 percent during his tenure
starting in 1979 before falling to 4 percent when he left in
August 1987.

Inflation over the medium term will stay below the Fed’s 2
percent target, Bernanke said today, adding that he believes the
central bank’s record stimulus has curtailed the risk of
deflation.

The Fed has tried “to achieve a stronger economy for
everybody” by seeking to meet its congressional mandate to keep
inflation low while attempting to achieve maximum employment,
Bernanke said.